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Fox Sports 1 debuts as 'fun' alternative to ESPN

By Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News

Posted:
08/16/2013 08:09:47 AM MDT

Updated:
08/16/2013 08:19:44 AM MDT

Regis Philbin, right, jokes with Terry Bradshaw during a news conference about Fox's new sports network in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Philbin will host a weekday sports talk show for the network's new channel Fox Sports 1. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)

It's kind of a funny story.

Fox Sports Wonderful -- otherwise known as Fox Sports 1 to those who've already seen the half-hour infomercials after every Dodgers and Angels game lately -- has been in this ready-or-not, here-we-come overdrive for the past few months. It has splattered promos, press conferences and personality profiles every which direction to make sure we know there's a planet-altering launch about to happen Saturday.

Along with that, it should be pointed out, comes the simultaneous appearance of Fox Sports 2. The first replaces the Speed channel; the second supplants the Fuel channel. It's a double-team effort.

Fueled by talking points that seem to speedily circle back to how much “fun' they're about to put back into sports, the momentum for these best damn new sports channels has been growing like fungus around Fox's L.A.-based campus.

But then, who was going to actually buy into it?

For weeks, the dish, satellite and teleco carriers that may have been mildly annoyed in having to charge about 23 cents a month to subscribers of Speed and Fuel weren't budging from having to approve a jump in the neighborhood of 80 cents to its customers, with the likelihood it would double somewhere down the road.

It took some compromising to verify Thursday that DirecTV, Dish and Time Warner Cable will each have FS1 and FS2 for the launch, but all may not be so tidy yet.

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Fox can claim, as it did in its press release, that “every major distributor (is) on board, making this the biggest sports cable network launch in history, and one of the largest network launches ever.' That's a 90-million home landing area.

But sources in the industry who are familiar with DirecTV's situation say the company has not signed a deal and it could be weeks, or even months, before the satellite provider does so. Until then, distributors like DirecTV will allowed Fox to upgrade Speed to FS1 as long as there is no extra charge for the channel.

Fundamentally, once the real price kicks in, expect some bickering on both sides with a possible shutdown by the distributors.

“Having everyone on board speaks to the strength of the product and the investment Fox has made, and it speaks to the partnerships we have with distributors -- we can work things out without a big public spat, which is good for everyone and we don't have this hanging around all weekend (during the launch),' Fox Sports co-President & co-COO Eric Shanks said Thursday.

Shanks, a former DirecTV bigwig who has seen these things get unraveled from the other end, says he can now focus more on what really seems to frighten him the most -- measuring first impressions versus the long haul for any FS1/FS2 success.

When they flip the FS1 switch at 3 a.m. Saturday, the underwhelming highlights of the live coverage will consist of practice runs from the NASCAR and World Truck Series in Michigan, followed by an impressive UFC card at 5 p.m. highlighted by Chael Sonnen against Mauricio “Shogun' Rua.

That feeds into the first “Fox Sports Live' studio show at 8 p.m., a news-and-infotainment entity that could siphon viewers away from ESPN's “SportsCenter' and be positioned to snuff out Keith Olbermann's re-appearance on ESPN2 starting Aug. 26.

Monday is the first airing of L.A.-based studio shows such as “Fox Soccer Daily' (1 p.m.) and “Fox Football Daily' (3 p.m.), surrounding the New York-produced “Crowd Goes W!ld' (2 p.m.), hosted by 81-year-old Regis Philbin, if you happen to be curious.

See what they did there with the title -- the “i' is replaced by ... never mind.

Until some real rights-fee contracts start to take effect in 2014 and 2015, the live-event content will be a minimalist mash-up of more minor motor sports, some overseas soccer games, boxing matches, poker shows, rugby ... a lot of the back-of-the-closet stuff you thought you already bypassed as filler on Fox Sports West or Prime Ticket but were afraid to look between the infomercials for reverse osmosis vacuum cleaners.

While college football that has previously been on Fox Sports Net or FX will be redirected to FS1 in the coming weeks -- including USC hosting Washington State on Sept. 7 and Arizona on Oct. 10, and UCLA at home vs. Utah on Oct. 3 -- the major game stuff (NFL, MLB, marquee college football) will stay on Fox's national network for the time being.

And as for those who've taken to comparing this FS1 thing as a challenge to ESPN in the way Fox News came out of nowhere to shake up CNN in the political news genre, that angle really doesn't seem to concern Shanks.

Even if it was Fox Senior Executive vice president David Hill who said early on: “We have to convince the sports-viewing public that what we have to offer is better -- or as good as -- what ESPN has been offering.'

“The people writing about it are absolutely making a bigger deal than how we think of it internally,' said Shanks. “We'd be doing this whether there's competition or not. That doesn't mean we're not competitive. We really believe there's room for an alternative voice and sports is an area with lots of room. But on a day-to-day basis, when we're making a show rundown, we're not thinking about what ESPN is doing. We do what we want to do at Fox.

“It's understandable (for the comparisons). The ratings will come out, they're public, and that's the easiest way to compare. But we know from Day 1 we have a lot of work to do, we're clearly an underdog, and a work in progress.

“There's always an opportunity for us to adjust and react. Mistakes are bound to happen. But we really don't think about failure. We don't sit around and say, 'Gosh, if this show does this number it won't be on the grid.' We're not an entertainment channel measured by the hits we make. This is a long-term build to reaching a point in 2015 where we will have NASCAR Sprint Cup races, MLB League Championship Series games, U.S. Open golf, the World Cup ...

“But then, as much as we want to say it's a marathon -- and it is -- first impressions always count, too. Our 'opening night' may last a month or couple of months, but once the curtain is lifted and people see it, it's exciting and scary with all creative work being seen and judged for the first time.'

You know Bristol, Conn., will be watching, and judging, and adjusting as well. In just the past week, ESPN snagged high-profile Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, a move Shanks admits “was a blow' to the company that had plans to incorporate his unique voice in news and studio shows.

ESPN chief John Skipper has been pulled into the media crossfire in explaining how the Worldwide Leader in Sports might have to go back and develop a counterattack to all the fun bombs apparently headed for the skies above us.

“If all you're going to do is have fun, I'm not quite sure how you're going to handle Johnny Manziel or a scandal at Penn State,' Skipper told the Hollywood Reporter. “The sports world is large and complex and requires lots of tones and abilities. I think their position is fairly limiting, and I think it's inaccurate to suggest that we're the boring, old, dreadful stormtroopers.'

Fox bosses contend they'll transgress efficiently between sports “news' and sports “jocularity' with its “Fox Sports Live' nightly show, which is split up between a desk of two anchors on one side -- Canadian imports Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole -- and a feng shui'd arrangement of ex-athletes like Gary Payton, Andy Roddick and Donovan McNabb waiting to outtalk each other on the opposite end.

What FS1 will likely have endure for a time is that in trying to tickle viewers' funny bones every which way, it runs the risk of having other people making fun of it.

Fox doesn't see this as a be-funny-or-die proposition. It depends on your perspective.

“Rupert (Murdoch, the patriarch of the Fox Networks) always says that of all the things he's done, he's not prone to looking backward,' said Shanks. “With Fox Sports now being here 20 years (formed in 1994 when it bought the NFL's NFC rights), we could be waxing poetic about all that. But we happen to be here starting something new. That's kinda neat.

“It's scary, because you work so hard with a lot of talented people behind the scenes, with no one watching, then you flip the switch and get judged by viewers.'